The unheavenly chorus Schlozman, Kay Lehman; Verba, Sidney; Brady, Henry E
2012., 20120409, 2012, 2012-04-09, 20120101
eBook
Politically active individuals and organizations make huge investments of time, energy, and money to influence everything from election outcomes to congressional subcommittee hearings to local school ...politics, while other groups and individual citizens seem woefully underrepresented in our political system.The Unheavenly Chorusis the most comprehensive and systematic examination of political voice in America ever undertaken--and its findings are sobering.
The Unheavenly Chorusis the first book to look at the political participation of individual citizens alongside the political advocacy of thousands of organized interests--membership associations such as unions, professional associations, trade associations, and citizens groups, as well as organizations like corporations, hospitals, and universities. Drawing on numerous in-depth surveys of members of the public as well as the largest database of interest organizations ever created--representing more than thirty-five thousand organizations over a twenty-five-year period--this book conclusively demonstrates that American democracy is marred by deeply ingrained and persistent class-based political inequality. The well educated and affluent are active in many ways to make their voices heard, while the less advantaged are not. This book reveals how the political voices of organized interests are even less representative than those of individuals, how political advantage is handed down across generations, how recruitment to political activity perpetuates and exaggerates existing biases, how political voice on the Internet replicates these inequalities--and more.
In a true democracy, the preferences and needs of all citizens deserve equal consideration. Yet equal consideration is only possible with equal citizen voice.The Unheavenly Chorusreveals how far we really are from the democratic ideal and how hard it would be to attain it.
Transport academics and activists alike frequently build up the "road lobby" to be a menacing force, secretly controlling transport policy across Australia. Just who makes up that lobby and how it ...affects policy is rarely explained with rigour. This article seeks to start the process of demystifying the road lobby. It identifies two approaches to defining it and, using various documentary sources, charts its channels of influence, as well as some limits to its power. It ends by setting down a challenge: for our discipline to ascribe such influence to the road lobby, we must seek stronger, more compelling evidence.
Fittingly, in the nation whose birth cry opposed taxation without representation, citizens in American democracy seek political voice not only individually but jointly. Having outlined in the ...preceding chapter some of the complexities that make the measurement of inequalities of voice especially difficult when representation is collective, in this chapter we use systematic data that we collected for the Washington Representatives Study to inquire into the kinds of interests that are represented by organizations in national politics and the extent to which that configuration approximates equality of political voice.
“One answer to the question, ‘Who is in government relations?’ might
In international as in domestic politics group activity has become influential. Organizational and propaganda techniques have enabled these groups to claim an enlarged role in the decisions both of ...foreign offices and of intergovernmental organizations. Whether the form of activity which in the United States is synonomous with pressure groups is a universal phenomenon is a question awaiting systematic analysis. In the United States governmental structure, undisciplined political parties, the industrial and communications revolutions have combined to widen the opportunities open to citizens' groups to participate in the making of policy. Due to the necessity of compromise between the conflicting aims of such groups, the results of their activities in terms of foreign policies are rarely consistent. The external environment raises the armed services, already practiced in lobbying, to a new height of influence in grand strategy. Participation by international nongovernmental organizations in making policy with wider scope and effect has been recognized in the United Nations and other postwar charters. In a nation-state system in which nationalism builds up new states while the technology of security tends to undermine old ones, the modern system of pressure groups introduces an element of democratic control over policy, but with mixed effects on the welfare of peoples.
Certain changes in the modern economy stand in marked contrast with the individualist, laissez-faire model. This new "collectivism" can be summarized under four headings. The tendency to concentrate ...economic power among a few big buyers or sellers in a particular industry or complex of industries; the changes in internal structure resulting from this increase in the size of units which we term bureaucracy and managerialism; the method of dealing with one another of these units by bargaining or "collective bargaining"; and the ability of the units when dealing with consumers to shape and even create the very wants which the units supposedly came into existence to satisfy. Parallel changes in the polity provide us with a "collectivist" model that we can use to compare the distribution of power on the plane of pressure groups and parties in Britain and United States. It appears that the British polity comes closer to this model than the American.
Pressure Groups in France Ehrmann, Henry W.
The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,
09/1958, Letnik:
319, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
As elsewhere pressure groups in France operate on all levels of the political process: shaping public opinion, manipulating political parties, pressing for favorable legislation in Parliament and for ...desirable rulings by the executive. What distinguishes the tactics and the effects of pressure-group action from those in other countries results rather from the particularities of the French political apparatus, from the uneven development of economic growth, and from the divided loyalties of the French people. Because of the lack of disciplined parties in a multiparty parliamentary system, interest groups can operate from within the cabinet. The question to which extent it has penetrated the once solidly walled sphere of the high administration is controversial. But that the rigidity and an "immobilism," characteristic of pressure groups everywhere, is transferred in France to the machinery of government, is generally admitted; it leads to an analogous immobilism of the political organs and hence has contributed to the crisis of the French Republic.
Organized Labor in Politics Carey, James B.
The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,
09/1958, Letnik:
319, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
In this article, one of America's top labor leaders discusses the reasons organized labor is in politics and the way it operates. The article outlines briefly the history of labor in politics and the ...changes in its philosophy over the years. It discusses the need for political action on the part of labor, stating frankly that "organized labor could not possibly stay out of politics," for labor's collective bargaining responsibilities and its political responsibilities "are indivisible." The author cites the record of huge contributions of millions of dollars by a few wealthy families to political parties and candidates and points out that in 1956, "with all of labor's work and effort, twelve wealthy families spent more money than all of organized labor managed to raise during the entire election campaign." The three phases of labor activity in political action-registration, education, and exercise of the right of free speech-are discussed thoroughly. In concluding, the author gives a bold and frank answer to the question: "What does labor expect in return for its political support? What does labor want?"
Farmers in Politics McCune, Wesley
The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,
09/1958, Letnik:
319, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The farm vote is an independent one. Although there are many farm organizations-The American Farm Bureau Federation, The National Farmers Union, The National Grange, many different commodity groups, ...and co-operative organizations-and a farmer might belong to one or more groups, nevertheless his political inclination remains an individual decision. Although the farm population is shrinking significantly, the farm vote has determined a national election as recently as 1948, and with skillful dramatization, it can quite easily determine the results of Congressional elections-the question of price support was a significant factor in the 1954 Congressional elections. In the 1952 Presidential campaign, even though the election did not hinge on the farm vote, both parties tried to woo it. And, after the election, both the Democratic and Republican party established a farm division. With the aid of appeals to consumers as against producers, there is reason to believe that something which might be called "the food vote" may determine the next Presidential election, if not subsequent ones.
Management in Politics Lenhart, Robert F.; Schriftgiesser, Karl
The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,
09/1958, Letnik:
319, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
That business is in politics as a necessity for economic survival goes without saying. But the businessman in politics is another matter. For many years business has operated mainly behind the façade ...of pressure groups and through the agency of the lobbyist. Businessmen have also sought political advantage through the use of publicity and the new "profession" of public relations. A survey shows that their active participation in politics has not been as great as might be supposed. But enlightened businessmen seem to feel that members of management should take a more active part, not just in politics but, it would seem, in party politics. Today, for the most part, they prefer to work on the sidelines, and then not very actively, or through trade associations. Some of the reasons for this include social ostracism and the fear of treading on other people's toes. But the businessman has too much at stake in this complex world, where "we are in the midst of a revival of a truly political economy, whose major economic problems are political in nature." The authors suggest that less lobbying and more outright participation in politics by management and research is needed in the business community in order to meet fairly the many political and economic pressures of the day.
